An analysis of European plastics production, demand and waste data

https://plasticseurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2017-Plastics-the-facts.pdf

Plastics – the Facts is an analysis of the data related to the production, demand and waste management of plastic materials. It provides the latest business information on production and demand, trade, recovery as well as employment and turnover in the plastics industry. In short, this report gives an insight into the industry’s contribution to European economic growth and prosperity throughout the life cycle of the material.

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Rosa Pritchard

13 Sept 2023, 17:17

to bffp-europe@googlegroups.com

Hi all,

Is anyone familiar with this PlasticsEurope report on recycling from 2017?

2017-Plastics-the-facts.pdf (plasticseurope.org)

It cites the EU as having a 41% plastics recycling rate. I’m assuming this is based on plastic collected for recycling rather than actually recycled and that’s why it’s so high e.g. compared to the OECD data… and it might have something to do with the way data was collected back in 2017…?

I want to explain to someone why they should not be citing this as an accurate plastic recycling rate!

Thanks so much

Rosa Pritchard

Lawyer – Accountable Corporations

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Rosa Pritchard14 Sept 2023, 10:38to susana.fonseca@zero.ong, Nusa, Andreea, bffp-europe@googlegroups.com, pawel@otzo.most.org.pl

Thanks all for the excellent comments, (see discusion details below). as always  My main takeaways are: 

• The 2017 data should not be relied on. The more up to date data from PlasticsEurope on plastic packaging (2020 data, published 2022) is likely to be more accurate. This puts the amount of plastic (so presumably not just packaging) “sent for recycling” at 35% - so not counting losses during recycling or accounting in any way for downcycling, and presumably counting plastics exported.

• I realise for plastic packaging it could be higher, but much higher…? I’m not sure. If Eunomia thinks only around 50% of PET bottles are recycled (How circular is PET), thinking about the quantities of flexible plastic packaging I find it hard to believe plastic packaging recycling rates (as in actual quantities recycled, let’s say including downcycling for the sake of argument) are 40%...?

• Possibly the more useful/revealing figure to show the issues is the share of plastic being produced from post-consumer recycling content – 9.9% in 2021 and 8.5% for packaging.

• The Investigate Europe article is helpful for explaining the issues with the data.  

Ewoud Lauwerier/OceanCare14 Sept 2023, 11:54to Rosa, susana.fonseca@zero.ong, Nusa, Andreea, bffp-europe@googlegroups.com, pawel@otzo.most.org.pl

Hello Rosa, For what it's still worth, a few reflections following your e-mail: 

• First of all, it is not at all clear, and factually impossible to know where Plastic Europe’s data are coming from. Also for this particular graph about ‘plastic packaging recycling rates’ on p. 37 of the ‘Plastics the facts 2017’ publication you shared, they do not cite any source or methodology to back up there data. As a matter of fact, in their publications in general, Plastics Europe very rarely mention any source for all the claims they make and numbers they present. This alone should already caution against using their numbers. 

• Then, how this claim relates to the data provided by the EU is not clear. Though I am not a specialist on EU-data, at least note that according to the ‘European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy’ from January 2018, p. 2, “in Europe every year less than 30% of [plastic waste] is collected for recycling”. Observe that the Strategy is talking here about plastic waste overall, not only packaging waste (contrary to Plastics Europe), and this does not concern the amount of plastic being actually ‘recycled’, but just being ‘collected for recycling’. 

• Furthermore, just by looking at the one country I know best, Switzerland, I notice that Plastic Europe’s claim about recycled plastic packaging waste can just not be right. According to the aforementioned graph, Switzerland would have a 30% plastic packaging recycling rate. But this is way off from official estimates within the country itself. According to reporting from the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, plastic waste is consistently considered to be incinerated for about 85-90%. The only plastic packaging material which is so far collected separately are PET bottles. Obviously, in first instance, we could then just suppose that they only included this into their graph (which then of course would also be problematic); but this too does not work, because for PET the collection for recycling rate is consistently about 80%, so not in line with the 30% either.

Overall, I would like to take the occasion – hence my previous explanations – to strongly caution against using plastics Europe data. They are systematically biased, incomplete, misleading… Exemplary are Plastics Europe data about plastic waste in Europe which are largely circulating and used – in that sense you even find them in official EU publications where they are cited instead of Eurostat data - but which are based on methodologically completely unexplained estimates. 

Therefore, personally, I would suggest to avoid using their data at all. Because that’s exactly what they wanted from the beginning – what they even explicitly declared in their first annual report from 2004: Plastics Europe “seeks to make a difference for the industry, in particular via enhanced and co-ordinated communications and advocacy” (p. 10), and has as mission “to ensure a broad recognition that plastics are a responsible material choice” (p. 13). To do so, they seek “to increase knowledge about plastics, the level of trust and confidence in the industry and its materials through quality information” (p. 14). Especially the last mentions of ‘increase knowledge’ and ‘quality information’ are key here. That is, ultimately, all data Plastics Europe shares has but one goal, that is to advance their own interests.  

In conclusion, overall, Plastics Europe data are uncontrollable, divulgated without any source or methodology (or only a very ramshackle methodology), and ultimately only have the intention to serve their narrative. Always happy to talk about this more, when useful. 

Regards, Ewoud 

Discussion details below:

Stephane Arditi <stephane.arditi@eeb.org>

13 Sept 2023, 18:27

to Rosa, bffp-europe@googlegroups.com

Hi Rosa

While I cannot tell if data of 2017 are accurate or not, I can tell that more recent annual reports exist and may be referred to instead.

This is an annual consolidation by PE.

Best

Stéphane

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Pawel Gluszynski <pawel@otzo.most.org.pl>

13 Sept 2023, 22:14

to bffp-europe@googlegroups.com

Hi Rosa,

when the data comes from 2017 it can include recovery & recycling which means plastics that were incinerated & recycled. "Recovery" is no longer counted in statistics since amended WFD (2018/851) came into force, so since July 2020. It's scope changed from typical 'energy recovery' to other than energy recovery and other than the reprocessing of waste into materials used as fuels or other means to generate energy. It includes preparing for re-use, recycling and backfilling and other forms of material recovery such as the reprocessing of waste into secondary raw materials for engineering purposes in construction of roads or other infrastructure.

Please check its latest report of PlasticsEurope https://plasticseurope.org/knowledge-hub/plastics-the-facts-2022/ which shows different recycling numbers:

* Page 26: 5.5 Mt recycled out of 47.5 Mt produced in Europe in 2020 (11,5%)

* Page 45: recycled 10,17 Mt post consumer plastics out of 29.5 Mt collected in 2020 (34,49%)

Tricky, however, ~ 34% is real data for recycling of what is collected within the municipal waste stream.

Best,

Pawel

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Andreea Zotinca <azotinca@hcwh.org>

Attachments

14 Sept 2023, 08:45

to RPritchard, bffp-europe@googlegroups.com, pawel

Hi Rosa,

The Plastics Europe Systemiq report from 2022 mentions 14% as the plastics recycling rate in Europe.

Best,

Andreea Zotinca

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Nusa Urbancic

14 Sept 2023, 08:50

to Andreea, RPritchard@clientearth.org, bffp-europe@googlegroups.com, pawel@otzo.most.org.pl

Hi Rosa,

I think it might be better to use Eurostat data, as these are official EU stats?

Here is a great investigation that pulled some key data on plastic recycling around EU and in different MS:

https://www.investigate-europe.eu/posts/in-numbers-europes-mounting-plastic-waste-problem-unpacked

In numbers: Europe’s mounting plastic waste problem unpacked

Investigate Europe calculated some striking statistics from this sea of plastic data to give an idea of what Europe's waste problem is all about.

www.investigate-europe.eu

Best regards,

Nusa

Nusa Urbancic

CEO

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Piotr Barczak <piotr.barczak@zero-waste.pl>

14 Sept 2023, 09:04

to Nusa, Andreea, RPritchard@clientearth.org, bffp-europe@googlegroups.com, pawel@otzo.most.org.pl

hi all,

Just to clarify. 41% relates to plastic PACKAGING recycling rate. Not all plastic.

and it might be true accounting also for downcycling.

best,

p.

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Enzo Favoino <favoinoenzo@gmail.com>

14 Sept 2023, 09:12

to Piotr, Nusa, Andreea, RPritchard@clientearth.org, bffp-europe@googlegroups.com, pawel@otzo.most.org.pl

Spot on, Piotr.

I think I remember the EC themselves mentioned some 37% recycling rate for packaging plastics when presenting and advocating for the PPWR

Still, too low - needless to say. The rest goes to landfills (which is bad) incineration (which is worse, for it spews fossil CO2) and mismanaged (exported to LICs, leaked into environemnt and oceans - which is worst)

Great thread.

Have a nice day, you all.

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susana.fonseca@zero.ong

14 Sept 2023, 09:32

to Nusa, Andreea, RPritchard, bffp-europe, pawel

Good morning everyone

From our experience in Portugal, the packaging recycling rates in Eurostat are nor accurate, not because of Eurostat, but because the data the countries are communicating has serious problems.

The problem is that the universe of plastic packaging is much larger than the amount that is being communicated to the PRO and that is used to calculate the targets. In the case of Portugal, plastic packaging found in the waste characterizations is three times higher than the amount that is being communicated by brands… even discounting the dirt, etc., it is still a big difference.

So we have near zero trust in the statistics around plastic packaging waste recycling ☹.

Our Environment Agency and our National Statistics Institute are working together to try to bring some clarity on this issue (because of the EU tax on non-recycled plastic packaging waste). Let’s hope that soon we will have more news on this 😉.

Have a nice day!

Susana Fonseca

Vice-Presidente e Coordenadora da área Sociedades Sustentáveis

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